Wild Bill

But Tim, I was suggesting buying them from an auto wrecker. What would be the price of a used battery from a car totalled in an accident? Or what are the properties of an old battery? Lead acid batteries are well known to lose their cold weather capacity but can still be serviceable in indoor applications. Would a 6-7 year old battery from a Prius give usable service tucked into the corner of a basement, particularly since by your figures a homeowner would be asking for less than 25% of its original capacity? No do-it-yourselfer worth his salt just goes out and buys a lot of brand new stuff! Any fumble-fingered idiot can do that!

Yeah, meanwhile Quebec bans Ontario workers from going there to work! I remember when Bob Rae was Premier and he put in a few "tit for tat" laws. Quebec started screaming, not caring how hypocritical it looked! People everywhere always take the status quo for granted. When it comes to separation, the only time Quebecers took a serious look at the consequences was way back when Trudeau told them point blank " NO EI! NO OLD AGE PENSION! NO COMMON CURRENCY! NO COMMON PASSPORT! NO NOTHING! SEPARATE MEANS SEPARATE!" I really don't understand why Anglo politicians since then tiptoe around these issues. Surely they must realize that in the aftermath of any separation English Canada would wreak a terrible political price on any government that appeared to give too good a deal to Quebec. The idea that we would have an amicable divorce is a pipedream! There would be too many emotions, all too strong.

I'm a techie! I really don't understand where this idea came from that we have to pay EXTRA to be green! There are a lot of things we can do that would SAVE us money! All these mega-project ideas, like provincial electricity companies building giant wind farms and such, all seem to deliver energy to us little folks FAR more expensively than what we have now! This only makes sense, I guess. Why on earth would anyone expect that a government scheme would cost us LESS money? It never, ever has before! If we think about individual generating and conserving schemes, just enough for our own needs, we open up a lot more opportunities. The big problem is a sufficiently large battery bank. Car batteries are a very poor choice, as they tend to go bad if you drain them too deeply. Tow motor and electric golf cart batteries work well! The batteries used and being developed for electric and hybrid cars are an excellent choice! Right now they are very expensive brand new but surely they will start to show up in autowreckers and the like! You do have to have some knowledge and talent to safely "roll your own" but it can be well worth it. If manufacturers offered more products for this market people could start to save some real money for themselves. Canadian Tire has started to offer home windmills and solar panels but they are still more expensive than buying from the regular power grid. It only makes sense for cottages up north, perhaps on islands where there is no conventional electricity available. Again, the "system" wants us to pay a premium. Still, things are starting to change. Even 5 years from now might show a very different picture.

Ah Bonam, but even your exceptions spark arguments. For instance, since Canada is one of the few countries in the world that make it illegal to pay your own medical costs (the others being Angola and Cuba - good company, eh?) is it morally right to expect to control an individual's behaviour on the grounds of his possible cost to the health care system that he has no choice to use? Second hand smoke is subject to more "politically correct" biased science than climate change! Sure was a great tool against the smokers. Especially when society allowed smokers no place of their own to avoid non-smokers! I always thought it telling that no one ever tried having smoking and non-smoking restaurants, so that non-smokers and even staff would have the choice. Instead, smokers can either sit with non-smokers and be forced to abide by anti-smoking rules or they can stay home. In some cases, even if they stay home they can face problems if their smoke leaks into an adjoining apartment. Anyhow, I'm picking apart your model instead of your point. I'm just trying to conform to the common practice on this board!

I was lucky, Dancer! I was a guest at a farmer friend's house. His grandfather had shot the ground hog, cleaned and cooked it. All I had to do was plop some mashed potatoes at the side of my share on my plate!

I've eaten ground hog before. Tasted like the most tender roast beef! Not surprising, since the little bastards tend to feast only on the nicest vegetables in YOUR home garden! You won't feed a large family on the roast, though.

As I said earlier in another thread, french immersion is just a secret plan to APPEAR to promote bilingualism, while actually ensuring that Anglos will always sound like foreigners to the Quebecois ear! It's blatantly obvious that the "system" does NOT want Canadian Anglos to have a Canadian French accent!

Man, have you got me wrong! First off, YOU mentioned the Reform Party! YOU stated that they have all the influence in the present CPC and thus were behind this "crack-down"! I merely responded to your premise, as in the light of my personal experience I thought you were full of crap! Meanwhile, who's disagreeing with you about how the present CPC has included some goofiness in their "war on crime"? Certainly not me, who has pointed this out a number of times in previous posts. I have stated that I believe they are wasting resources aiming at cheap and easy targets like marijuana, perhaps looking for freebie photo ops while murderers and pedophiles roam the streets with impunity. The CPC reminds me of the old cartoon character "Fearless Fosdick", who would kill a dozen innocent bystanders but always got his man! Lastly, why the f**k is it MY job?? I'm NOT a conservative! I deliberately let my membership lapse years ago, when I saw that Reform was dead within the new Party! For the billionth time, I'm more of a Classic Liberal. I vote CPC only because to me the alternatives are all MUCH worse! Even then, I've been tempted not to bother voting at all. I'M supposed to "show some balls"? Why don't YOU show some balls! Make your party popular enough with the mainsteam to change things! If you can't change your party then start a new one! Your ass is as stuck to your chair as mine and besides, you're probably a lot younger! You could offer to pay my membership in the CPC and I would refuse to take it! I'd rather join an ABBA fan club! I can't think of a stronger way to insult me than to suggest I'm a member of the present CPC.

Could you cite just where in our Constitution or Charter or anywhere it actually says that? I think you must be too young to remember that there was a time when the Feds did NOT meddle in education and health at all! Starting slowly in Pearson's time and gaining traction during the Trudeau years the Liberals started touting this idea of a federal mandate to ensure equal opportunities in all provinces. They actually had no mandate for this idea. They just pulled it out of their butts! However, as a political tool it was brilliant! What really happened is that within a surprisingly short time Ottawa was giving provinces so much money in the name of education and health that they were dependent on it! At that point the Feds effectively had control. No constitutional changes were necessary. Controlling the money was enough. Once everyone started to believe that the Feds were responsible in these areas they could start taking credit for anything that appeared to be positive that happened, even though often the particular province had done all the work! This was also why the Martin cuts in the early 90's hurt the provinces so much. They had grown so used to Ottawa money that when it was cut back they faced big deficits in their health and education budgets. Ironically, the moves backfired on Martin. He cut back the money to the provinces so deeply that some provinces started to question why they should be bound by this idea of equal levels of service in every province. It was always hard even with the handouts for poorer provinces to try to keep up with Ontario and Quebec. Some actually publicly mused about whether it would be cheaper and more efficient to say screw the federal money and go it alone. If they were paying it all themselves then there would be no collar around their necks to heed the federal government (Liberal Party). Punked, I know schools today are very poor on Canadian history, particularly our politics, but surely if you want to argue in political circles you might want to study up a bit on your own? Citizens with a memory are our best defense against politicians.

Good luck! I complained about this in school 50 years ago! I asked why in the name of Canadian unity were we Anglos being taught Parisian French? As you can imagine, I never got a good answer. After high school I spent some time as a roadie for a rock band. We played a lot in Northern Ontario, in towns that were French. A few years later, I ran into my old school french teacher and he "parlez-vous"d at me. I spoke right back and right away he reproached me with "You've picked up a bad accent!" "I know!" I replied. "It's a CANADIAN accent!" Unless you are fortunate enough to find some Quebecois friends you are essentially "snackered", my friend! It's just the way it is in Anglo Canada. It's like teaching English to someone from Trois-Riviere so that if he comes to Toronto he will sound like Winston Churchill. It just guarantees that we will NEVER sound like a unified country! We will ALWAYS sound "odd" to each other! Molson Breweries has done more for Canadian unity than any board of education has done.

Geez, Morris! Have we gone so far down the left path that someone like punked can make such an elementary mistake?

No, sadly something else is more likely to happen. People are going to get more aggressive about defending themselves and their property. This will certainly lead to some unfortunate extreme occurrences, like a robber being killed by a home owner. When this happens those who think we are too harsh on crime will moan and whine about how this is such a tragedy and an indication of the rise of heartless conservatism. In actual fact, they will have only themselves to blame! Vigilantism is not some sport or recreation. It is a reaction to a loss of faith in the system to protect the lives and property of its citizens. We can argue and nitpick about whether stats or perceptions are true or not but it's a total waste of time. If a citizen BELIEVES the cops or the courts won't protect him then his only logical alternative is to take steps himself. Unfortunately, some of us aren't as smart as others. Do we want to see teenage burglars killed by deadfall traps? Or how about the report of a father in an American state who's boy hid in a closet to scare his dad for Halloween, only to have his dad shoot him by mistake? THAT'S the direction in which we are headed! The way to stop it is to restore the mainstream's faith in the system! You don't do this by trying to out-argue or scold people. They will just ignore you. You do it by improving the system and agressively publicizing the success stories. You do NOT try to censor or downplay the mistakes! People ALWAYS find out about your mistakes and you just do grievous harm to your credibility. You have to make it logical to trust the system. Respect is always earned. It is the mark of a loser to simply demand it.

So far everyone is arguing with each other. No one has considered how this is perceived by mainstream Canadians. In a nutshell, no one in Quebec thinks it's a big deal. Quebecers are very pragmatic in their politics. They can understand perfectly how someone can change their views, either from life experience or just from ambition to get ahead in the game! The separatistes know that much of their support is "soft" and would drop them in a hot buttered instant if a better deal for Quebec presented itself. Belonging to a separatiste party not only carries no shame but also no real identification with a hard core agenda. What Quebecers seem to TOTALLY misunderstand is that to TROC it IS a big deal! Separatistes are viewed as traitors, pure and simple, at worst. At best they are seen as opportunists using the threat of separation to gouge an unfair share of the federal pie from Canadians outside of Quebec. I'm willing to bet that the Quebec newspapers have hardly covered this issue. They might now only as to the reaction in TROC. However, for the NDP it doesn't look like Jack may have thought this all the way through. Or perhaps he has! He knows that his new Quebec support is safe with this lady as a caretaker. His support outside the province is mostly core NDP boosters anyway. They've supported the party for years, no matter what has happened. He's not likely getting much new support at this time in the rest of the county. Time enough to worry about that next election. Still, it would be only sensible for the NDP party brass to acknowledge that outside of Quebec it IS an issue! It would be too easy for this meme to grow and come back to bite them.

August, I was a concrete inspector on one of my first jobs, back in the 70's. Although we hardly joked about it every day, the situation in Quebec as to inspection and construction corruption was well known among us. We were damn glad we worked in Ontario! Everything revolves around the quality of the inspection, since it is so easy to cheat at the time construction is in progress. For instance, I've been at sites where the specs call for a number of certain sized reinforcing bars to be placed in a large concrete base slab along each perimeter edge. These steel bars are expensive and I've caught crews pulling the same bars along each edge as the concrete was being poured, making it look like 4 sets were placed but in reality there was only one. The lack of bars in the other 3 sides would dramatically cause 3 weak spots! We took constant tests and samples as concrete was poured. Perhaps the most important was called the "slump" test, where we would place a sample in a certain consistent manner into a metal cone. When we carefully pulled the cone up the concrete would "slump" a bit if dry, a lot if wet and the cone would totally collapse if too wet! The amount of moisture affects the strength of concrete. Mixing in too much water makes it too weak when it is dry and set, but far easier for the workmen to push around when first placing it! There are buildings in Hamilton where to this day I refuse to step out on a balcony. Not nearly as many as in Quebec, perhaps. Still, there are some. Everyone knew there was some mob activity in the construction industry but it was kept below a minimum that affected the quality and thus the safety of the job. These projects cost so much money that the financiers insisted on a high level of inspection throughout the construction processes. By comparision, there was little or no inspection of a private citizen's potential home. If his basement floor cracked he was on his own. I'm not sure but I believe the laws are a bit different in Ontario than Quebec, in order to assure legal redress if your skyscraper falls down! The impression, and here I offer no proof but only this popular impression, was that in Quebec the corruption went all the way up to the politicians. That's why you had to fear concrete falling on your head at an Expo game! "Corrupt policemen" indeed, August. When it goes that deep, I have no idea what the Quebec people can do about it. So far virtually none of your political options has shown himself to be a crusader...

Okay...gifted kids grow up to be greedy, self centred psychpaths. That seems to be what you're saying! Please stay away from any gifted children. If that's what a kid might sense you think of him you'd likely screw his head up for life! A kid can't help being born smart, you know. If he was gay you would support him. Because he's smart you expect him to grow up to be a greedy psychopath! Geez! We desperately need that "B" Ark!

Why do you think that would be necessary? You sound like gifted students are some kind of Frankenstein's monsters! Perhaps your view is truly mainstream and an example of why gifted kids get such poor support...

I totally disagree with you! Since I was right in there at the time, I believe I had a more objective view. I really think you have some cartoonish caricature of Reformers being Bible-thumping straight-laced crackers. You don't seem to realize that Reformers were Canadians, not Bible Belt Americans. In all the years I participated in the Reform movement I never once met ONE evangelical Christian! In all the workshops and sessions to hammer out Party policy I never heard diddleysquat about any stand on marijuana. In fact, a couple of us went outside for a "toot" upon occasion! We DID focus a lot on the "system" being soft on criminal sentencing but we were always talking about REAL criminals! Those were the days of Karla Homolka deals, remember! It wasn't just the Reformers who had that idea. You keep expressing this view of Reformers but for the life of me I can't figure out where the hell you got it, except possibly by pulling it out of your butt! The "social conservative" stuff was always a very small part of Reform and the leadership worked very hard to keep it suppressed. They knew that if it ever got any power it would sink the party's popularity. When Stockwell Day "snuck" into leadership and suddenly revealed himself as an evangelical he nearly destroyed the party, exactly as the majority of us always knew. Manning and Harper had both warned the party repeatedly that Canadians did NOT like to mix politics and religion! That was precisely what Day did, and we lost several years of momentum. Just ask Deborah Grey and Chuck Strahl. When Deborah Grey and others bailed out on Stockwell that was like an H-bomb within the party! She and the others had FAR more prominence in the party than Day ever did! If anything, I suspect that the social conservatives within the CPC are old PCs! The PCs always had to keep a lid on such people as well. Now, with the PCs apparently ruling the party these social conservatives have the power and opportunity they always wanted. Eyeball, did you ever read ANY Reform brochure or pamphlet? If you can find a list of Reform party principles, with all the planks about "ground up" policy development, representing the people to the Party rather than the Party to the people and all the other populist stuff I defy you to find examples of ANY of it being practiced in the present CPC! Reformers running the CPC indeed! Nice unsubstantiated opinion! It would be a hoot indeed to hear you actually try to PROVE it!

Canada has always had a flawed system. The only party ever to be serious about representing the constituency's views to Ottawa instead of Ottawa's views back to the constituency was the Reform Party. As soon as it merged back with the PC party the new party brass couldn't bury the idea fast or deep enough!

"Gifted" kids have never been handled well by the "system". The problem is that usually those administering such programs are not "gifted" themselves! First off, there's an assumption that such kids are going to do ok anyway. This allows diverting more resources to kids with learning problems, without feeling any "guilt". Unfortunately, we are dealing with kids here. It's all to easy for a "gifted" child to notice that the kids with problems get all the attention and get to play with most of the "neat stuff". Second, it's perfectly natural for a gifted child to feel bored. To him or her, the schooling IS boring! Worse yet, the usual solution from most teachers entrusted to handle the situation is to give the gifted child a higher workload, OF THE SAME BORING STUFF! It's just a plain fact of life that the "system" gets more praise for helping kids with learning difficulties than they do for accommodating the "brighter" ones. As a parent, if you recognize that you have a "gifted" child you should tread carefully. If you push too hard you will become known at your child's school as someone asking for more work and effort from teachers that are not always just lazy. They usually have enough on their plate and when you are stressed by such it's just human nature to resent someone heaping on more for you to do. I found with my children the best thing was to get them reading before they start kindergarten. Get them computer literate as fast as possible at the same time. If they get used to reading books and googling for their interests early enough they will get in the habit of learning on their own. Make them understand that they need to maintain a reasonably high standard in their regular schooling, since we live in a society where it's your academic credentials that can determine your economic opportunities, no matter how much you may or may not actually know. However, this doesn't mean that they can't learn as much as they like about any subject that interests them, on their own! Other than Montessori, which is not really a program for gifted kids as one purporting to make ANY kid do better, I have never heard of anything but a few short lived "experiments" for gifted kids in North American public schools. If anyone is aware of working and positive public school programs for gifted kids I would love to hear about them!

You know, I will admit that lately I have harboured biased feelings towards black folks and it's TOTALLY a cultural thing! It's the music! I mean, they gave us the blues, with Robert Johnson and later B B King (who is GOD!). They invented rock and roll, with men like Chuck Berry and later Jimi Hendrix. Then they followed up with disco and hiphop! It's unforgivable!

You misunderstand me. Math is indeed abstract but it can very accurately describe the physical world. You don't need much math to be a botanist but if you did you'd likely have become a physicist or an engineer instead,. Let's describe your "cart before the horse" example a bit differently. While A may equal B, B doesn't have to equal A. Or more specifically, a physicist could also be a botanist but a botanist could never be a physicist, unless he had fair proficiency in math.

I form my opinions from my own experience. All my life I have refused to swallow someone else's opinions unless they made sense to me. I seem to have been born incapable of simply bowing to authority. Authority has usually proven to be undeserved, again in my own experience. For me, that is as objective as is necessary! It's my life and no one but me is responsible for my actions, so it's up to me accept or reject what I believe. The reason why I don't include botany as a "hard" science as it doesn't really need much math. Again, I have formed the conclusion that while you don't need a minimum facility in math to be a good person, a musician, beautician or telephone sanitizer I've never found very many of these people to be very good at cause and effect arguments. I feel even less shame in not being "objective" with environmentalists because virtually every one I have ever met, read or listened to fit my description to a "T". Again, I put my stock in my own experience. That of someone else may come from a mistaken impression or at worst a hidden agenda. If I know the individual well enough I may and often do put much more confidence in his or her experience but again, I have to know them well enough to establish a track record. Frankly, that's one of the reasons why I consider so many of YOUR positions to be invalid! You tend to use the club of authority far too much for my tastes, such as "if you were as well informed as I AM you would know better!" This is also the reason why I stated previously that well I would certainly consider you a ferocious advocate for either the Crown or the Defense I would have very little confidence in your performance as a judge. Anyhow, objective or not by your standards, I have my own opinions and I operate by them. I will never change them simply because someone else tells me to, without giving me a convincing argument first. As to who sets the definition of "convincing" why, I do, of course! Again, it's my life. If I simply swallowed every argument someone (like you, perhaps) gave me and you were wrong, who would suffer? If I bear the consequences then I should have the right to question the argument. If my attitude bothers you so much, you could always put me on 'ignore'. I don't really think you are prone to do that, as the sarcastic tone of so many of your posts implies that you look at this board as simply a source for your amusement anyway. Believe it or not, I'm here in a search for truth and with many of the posters I learn something and often change a belief or two. However, the reason why I so rarely agree with you is that it has always seemed to me that you care nothing for finding out what's true! You simply want an opportunity to insult someone, perhaps to make yourself feel superior. That's just my humble, unobjective opinion, based solely on my own direct experience. As you have already explained to me how my direct experience is merely anecdotal and therefore never happened I'm sure you won't take exception to it.

So we could take it that you would have no problem hiring a black man who was third or fourth generation Canadian? Or maybe grew up in a professional district of London, England?

Am I the only one suspicious of how this became an issue so close to the next provincial election? Why now? I think that Dalton is so desperate that he's sending up trial balloons all over the place, looking for things that might bring him some votes. I don't know if a Liberal gov't in Queens Park would actually change the laws to allow beer in variety stores but I could see them making a lot of implications during a campaign, without definitely making the promise, so that they could not later be held to it.

That's because so many "environmentalists" have no actual scientific background. They're poly-sci or Arts students! "Environmentalism" has become a church. Being a member allows you to call yourself one. With no background to help you understand any of the science involved you are free to spout your opinions AND BE POLITICALLY ACTIVE with no need to actually prove your beliefs. If challenged, any reasonably bright "environmentalist" can defend himself with ad hominem replies, stating that their opponent doesn't "care" enough about the planet or when pressed to the wall they can say that those who argue against them are in the pay of evil rich polluting companies. If the debate gets truly scientific there are lots of actual science types they can drag out but they don't usually do this unless it is a public enough debate or one of sufficient PR importance. I'm NOT claiming that you have to have a string of university degrees IN SPECIFIC SCIENCES PERTAINING TO CLIMATOLOGY or whatever. I'm simply saying that you must have studied at least high school level "hard" sciences like physics and chemistry, meaning "soft" sciences like botany or don't measure up. Those people who dropped sciences as soon as they entered high school simply can't understand enough of the concepts to make an informed opinion. They will not be able to grasp all the answers but they should at least be able to get an impression of who and what seems credible. Screeches about "evil polluting oil companies paying scientists to lie" should be a good clue.